Shotlist

Goodyear's film about its rubber plantations on the island of Sumatra. Forest-clearing techniques, planting, latex production, and shipping. Besides the industrial footage, Sumatran people and culture are depicted as well, frequently in the most racist, patronizing, imperialist fashion.





Silent film with title cards.

Stock shots:
Dolok Merengir, Sumatra shown.
People in native dress celebrating holiday "hari-bazar" Music making. Dancing.
Use of the word "coolie" on title cards.
Gambling; puppet theater. Oxcarts.
Workers cutting down forests. Burning down forests.
Tree stumps left after fire. Heavy machinery uprooting tree stumps.
Young rubber trees on plantation.
Group of children. Mother with baby about to breastfeed.
Beautiful shots: Women doing laundry and bathing themselves and a child outdoors using water from pails.
Man beating a large hanging drum.
Cutting through the bark of a tree to reach latex. Rubber factory.
People overturning turf using very sharp sticks
SURPRISE stock shots: toddler smoking cigarette. Man with a cigarette in his nostril (not intended to be humorous).

Voiceovers:
"The presence of modern stump-pullers injected an atmosphere of civilization into this desolate-looking waste."
"Each case of rubber bespoke the untiring efforts of the Goodyear Organization to render a still greater service to civilization."<BR>